One thing we have been helping more and more clients with recently is domain acquisition for conversions. We are by no means hard core domain investors and our experience of the domain industry is intermediate at best. However, one of the often overlooked benefits of PPC marketing is the conversion data from the different sources the networks use…

For this example, we’ll use the trusted Google Content Network. For those unfamiliar, Google allows you to advertise using Adwords on three different “networks”. These are “categories” are the Google Search Network, which AdWords advertisers will be most familiar, The Search Partners Network which includes AOL and various other “trusted sources” and the Google Content Network which consists of hundreds of thousands of websites and domains running Google AdSense. For the sake of simplicity, I am leaving out print, audio and TV. What we will be focusing today is the Google Content Network.

Many advertisers either fail to consider buying additional domains to compliment their main one or don’t want the trouble of researching the value of the domain. With the Google Content Network, this is already being done for you behind the scenes.

The content network is, by default, run on all sources. This includes a plethora of relevant publisher websites as well as social networks, video portals and parked domains. We want to take a closer look at the latter.

It should be noted that Google give options to exclude most of these sources from within the AdWords console.

Assuming you are advertising on the content network and have your conversion tracking set up (you do have it set up don’t you?) you can use a rarely spoken about AdWords report called the “Placement Performance Report”. This report gives you insight into how your ads are performing on the different sources and gets as granular as the domain and URL of where your ad was served from.

When you run this particular report, you can choose to report and view on a variety of metrics. For the purpose of this post, we will only be looking at the domain, URL impressions, clicks, conversions and Value/Cost (Return On AdWords Ad Spend).

Below you will see an actual report run for one of our clients. As you can see, we have sorted the list by ascending conversion data. This is a report for ONE WEEK. Starting to see where I am going with this? For this particular client, the value for each conversion is between $97 and $227 so you can clearly see that the content network is working for them.

Great! We can see the content network is working well for this client. We can leave it running right? Well… let’s just take a look at what’s actually on “parked domain 1”. When we navigate to the site, we see a typical SEDO landing page with content network ads prominently displayed. We can also see the clients ad running in position #3. However, as with most/many SEDO landing pages that are only monetized through advertising while they are waiting to be sold, in the left column there is an offer to “Buy this domain“.

So this domain is for sale eh? If this domain is generating an average of six conversions per week for this client and it’s getting a lot of type in traffic, it must be worth something. Even sharing this domain with ten advertisers using AdWords, the value to this particular client is on the bottom end is $762 ($127 x 6) per week or $39624 per year! (assuming traffic is maintained AND that the client is still sharing with the other advertisers). We might be on to something. Clicking on the “More Details” link to buy the domain brings us to the following page:

So here we have a domain that’s generating $762 a week gross revenue and it’s for sale for $500? Do I need to tell you what happened next?

We advised the client and they purchased the domain the day of this report. Because we know which landing page was generating the conversions from this domain, the client simply did a 301 redirect to the landing page and let me tell you, they are reaping the rewards. They are getting an even higher than expected return because now they are not paying for the clicks to their site and are not sharing the page with 9 other competitors! Since the beginning of the year, they have purchased over 30 domains using this method.

Buying these domains that have type in traffic and that you KNOW convert (from your AdWords conversion data) offer a significant long term return on investment. So what are you waiting for? Go run your placement performance reports and see what money you are leaving on the domain table today! (before your competitors read this)

Outstanding!! Really – I had just set aside a few hours to catch up on my RSS reader and this is BY FAR the most interesting and useful advice I’ve read in days. I don’t think I would have ever thought about doing that, and almost all of my AdWords campaigns exclude the content network because I thought it would be a waste of money. This is seriously clever, thanks!!

Hmmm, does not really work anymore it seems..Google just displays ‘Parked domains’ as the url so I can’t see which domain it actually is.

Tob Says: July 16th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

@ Martin – I think the “Parked Domains” are domains in the google domain parking program and wouldn’t contain domains typically for sale on sedo. I think you need to look through every domain in your placement report to find the parked ones.

Aren’t you forgetting one thing? If you 301 redirect the domain, it will lose it’s own organic tyraffic eventually as there will be no content to index. Therefore the valuable/high conversion traffic that you buy would be wiped out (as quickly as 3 weeks in some cases)

@SEM mythbuster: No, this is irrelevant. The traffic is all type in traffic. Most parked domains have very weak (if any) organic rankings. Most search engines don’t see them as being much value in the organic index.

This is certainly a novel approach, and hopefully adds some transparency to a very shifty domain economy. BUT — one should also consider that the Content Network tends to reflect search behavior more typical of PPC, and conversely domain names are more germane to organic traffic. Therefore you really want to be assessing the conversion rate of your visits from organic search. Depending on the product (and the website content) the difference could be big…

@Paul Burani: That is a VERY good point. Of course it is essential to weigh up the intent of the visitor. As with all investments, especially with domains, it is important to perform your own due diligence.

@ Ann: No. You’d be surprised how many domains redirect to this site alone. What we like to do is redirect a domain about a topic to a page about that topic. That’s what this method should do in my opinion too.

I completely agree with SEO PRO, this is one of the most valuable posts I have read in a long time. As a veteran of SEO, SEM, PPC, and domaining, you have used a little known tool to uncover one way to determine the value of a domain. Rick Latona has some good thoughts as well, especially on geos.

@Paul…great point…kinda… :) I understand your logic from an ‘organic SEO’ and ‘generic/keyword domaining’ point of view, but if an affordable domain is driving traffic, buy it. :)

Dave…found your blog via a google alert. I will be visiting often. Keep up your insightful investigation and comprehension.

As of late I have also been seeing some of the content network referrer data showing up in GA as well, which could provide to be useful in the same manner. Specifically, I have been seeing the URL’s of the “referring” domains in the referrer report even though they should not be showing in that method.

I’ve purchased over 1,000 domains and I just added your RSS feed. Great article – I’m impressed. I’m of course always looking for new ways to monitize parket domains… I’m going to send this article to the PPC manager at work. Regards,

Google just keeps coming up with new tools to help Internet marketers and other small business owners.

I just learned about Google Ad Planner which enables ad placement by demographics. I believe this is much better than placing ads just by keywords.

I just wrote a post on it and linked to that post above.

education faculty Says: August 29th, 2008 at 1:02 am

This wouldn’t work anymore. Inbound links through 301s are no longer counted so the rank of this site would plummet. Anyone typing the address directly in their bar would still bet there but I don’t there are many people doing that.

Hey Dave, Just wanted to say that I just discovered your blog and have been finding the adwords posts really helpful for my foray into the adwords world.

The post from back in January on the updated status of the Adwords Content Network was particularly helpful because I had remembered reading that the content network performed quite poorly. I’m glad I stumbled across your post clearing all that up.

Just as a heads up, I’m a big twitter fan so I looked you up and sent a request to follow you. Just thought I’d give you a heads up so that you don’t think I’m just some random twitter spammer.

Not sure if you are using twitter just for private company stuff or not but I thought I’d give it a shot just in case since I’m very interested in following your insight on the online marketing industry.

I’ll be following the blog either way. Thanks again for the great posts so far.

This is really great post. Thanks for sharing. I really didn’t know that there is such an option to look on which domain ads have been placed. That really can help a lot, and with proper research good and valuable domains could be found.

Devon SEO Says: October 13th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Great blog, i’ve added to my bookmarks and i’ll be following your blog regularly. How about a post on URL construct and SEO.

very interesting stuff. Definitely have to start noticing the placement reports more for my sites. And have to even consider getting more professional consultations in the future if there are such good ideas out there.

Domains are one of the most important aspects of an e-commerce site (whether product or just a service). Some people might have a below average website, but bought a great domain ten years ago and make lots of money with very little effort.

This is great insight, I have heard of these things being done before, but never knew the right approach. Curious, on these parked domains, any concern over click fraud or has the experience for your customer been great!

everything you have posted is of great value and is much appreciated. I agree with Lexli, “Domains are one of the most important aspects of an e-commerce site” My class is teaching us all about the importance now. Now… HOW in the world will I retain all this info? ha ha

“If you 301 redirect the domain, it will lose it’s own organic traffic eventually” from SEM mythbuster. Dave replies: “No, this is irrelevant. The traffic is all type in traffic. Most parked domains have very weak (if any) organic rankings.” Sorry Dave but by definition this parked domain WAS getting organic ranking per the facts you put up. The only place from which a parked domain with no links can get traffic is search engines (unless you left out some facts and this parked domain has a bunch of links from a previous time when it was an active URL). So what’s that mean? Assuming no links, I think it means the URL was getting ranked for some obscure search term based on the power of it’s URL name alone. Rather than a 301 redirect, I’d find out what obscure term this URL ranks for. Then build minimal content around that term (to bolster it) with one prominent link on the page … to your beneficiary URL.

Cool Material Says: December 9th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

From what I am reading/hearing – the economic environment is causing a lot of domainers to tighten-up their portfolios and many domains are not being renewed in order to keep costs down. It might be a good time right now to check the domain-dropping services for good finds.

I didn’t know you could buy up domains and redirect right to a commercial site. Is this what you do to become an affiliate? I hardly get around on a computer yet, but I have been told to become affiliated with several companies (not certain companies, just several) Thank you for this information, it seems very valuable. I’ve bookmarked your site to come back and learn everything I can here. Tom

Wow! nice post. I look at the placement targeting report every month and never thought of that although I see many domains converting well though they are parked. I just put all the converting sites to one campaign and bid it a little bit more.

Interesting analysis. Im not 100% clear on this process but it does sound promising. I will have to reread your post and log into my adwords account and see if I cant make this process convert for me as well.